CU basketball notes: Boyle's Buffs to scrimmage Creighton Saturday

Colorado will scrimmage Creighton Saturday as preparations for the 2011-12 season ratchet up.

Boyle and senior forward Austin Dufault had to travel from Pac-12 media day to Omaha to join the Buffs for the closed-door session against the Jays.

"There are a lot of advantages," Boyle said of scheduling scrimmages instead of exhibition games. "One is you can go more than 40 minutes, so you can get a lot of different situations worked on. You can get guys more minutes."

Arizona, picked to finish third in the Pac-12 preseason media poll, suffered an eye-opening one-point loss to Seattle Pacific in an exhibition game on Thursday in Tucson.

"I guess I'm the only coach up here who is 0-1," said head coach Sean Miller, who led the Wildcats to 30 wins and the brink of a Final Four appearance last season. "Sometimes a lesson like we learned last night is the greatest lesson you can learn, and that really segues into this year's team. ...

"We're not the team that was in the Elite Eight. We're a brand-new team."

Boyle and many other coaches would rather have their October flaws kept private.

"One of the problems we're having, for example, are with illegal screens. One player might get called for three illegal screens in the first 20 minutes," Boyle said. "If you're in a game in a public situation, you have to take him out so he doesn't foul out. In a scrimmage, you learn from it, but you can just play through it.

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"There are just more situations you can get through and more things you can learn about your team than in a 40-minute game."

CU will also host Boyle's former team, Northern Colorado, for a scrimmage next weekend before the curtain is pulled back for the Nov. 11 opener against Fort Lewis at the Coors Events Center.

Bear bombshell

Cal's Mike Montgomery announced publicly for the first time that he has been diagnosed with bladder cancer and underwent surgery last week. Doctors have given the 64-year-old former Stanford and Golden State Warriors head coach a clean bill of health.

"Three months ago (the doctor) wouldn't have found it. Six months from now, you would have been done," Montgomery said of his timely diagnosis. "If you've got an ache or a pain, get checked."

The Bears received 13 first-place votes and were second behind UCLA in the preseason poll.

"It's scary. You go from being relatively on top of your game to no longer being in charge," Montgomery said. "I'm extremely fortunate it went the way it did. Probably adds a little bit of perspective to your life."

Trojans lack horses

NCAA sanctions and injuries have taken a toll on USC's roster. Head coach Kevin O'Neill will rely on 5-foot-7 point guard Maurice Jones to carry the team.

"This guy to my left (Jones) is playing 40 minutes a game this year," O'Neill said of Jones. "I'm informing him of that right now, because he's going to have to."

The Trojans have lost junior guard Jio Fontan to a season-ending injury and forward Evan Smith for six to eight weeks.

Enemy territory

The Bruins' famous home court, Pauley Pavilion, is undergoing a Hollywood-like facelift this season. UCLA will play four of its home games at the Honda Center in Anaheim and 14 games in the LA Sports Arena, which is located near the USC campus.

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